We are in the midst of one of the largest mass exctinctions since the massive Jurassic exctinction of the dinosaurs. How does this affect mankind's prospects?
Biodiversity is in serious decline worldwide in the opinion of the vast majority of scientific opinion and it is estimated for instance that up to 2/3 of all large mammal species have gone extinct in North America Alone the last 15,000 years.
Clarification added 10 months ago:
W.A. Akersten
1985, Canine function in Smilodon (Mammalia; Felidae; Machairodontinae). Contributions in Science, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County , 356: 1-22.
A. Berger and M.F. Loutre
1991, Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years. Quaternary Science Reviews, 10: 297-317.
A.S. Dyke and V.K. Prest
1987, Late Wisconsinan and Holocene history of the Laurentide ice sheet. Geographie Physique et Quaternaire, 41: 237-264.
R.W. Graham and M. Kay
1988, Taphonomic comparisons of cultural and noncultural faunal deposits at the Kimmswick and Barnhart Sites, Jefferson County, Missouri. IN (R.S. Laub N.G. Miller, and D.W. Steadman, eds.) Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Paleoecology and Archeology of the Eastern Great Lakes Region, Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, 33: 227-240.
A.V. Greene
1990, Illinois Geographic Information System: an Index to Automated Statewide Databases. Champaign, IL: Illinois State Water Survey, Department of Energy and Natural Resources, Circular 175. 320pp.
E.R. Hall and K.R. Kelson
1959, The Mammals of North America. New York City: The Ronald Press Company. 1083pp.
C.V. Haynes, Jr.
1985, Mastodon-bearing springs and Late Quaternary Geochronology of the Lower Pomme de Terre Valley, Missouri. Geological Society of America, Special Paper, 204: 1-35.
A.V. Greene
1990, Illinois Geographic Information System: an Index to Automated Statewide Databases. Champaign, IL: Illinois State Water Survey, Department of Energy and Natural Resources, Circular 175. 320pp.
J. Imbrie, J.D. Hays, D.G. Martinson, A. McIntyre, A.C. Mix, J.J. Morley, N.G. Pisias, W.L. Prell, and N.J. Shackleton
Answers (10)
Russell W
Owner of ICR/S3D (Integrated Computer Resources) Tech Consulting for Non-Profits
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Where did you get your PHd in biology/biochemistry/molecular biology/genetics, etc? Be aware that you are making a FANTASTIC claim, based on no bona-fides of your own and citing no sources. And don't use the "everybody knows..." line. If you went into a business meeting with this kind of...presentation, you would be shown the door pal. Not trying to start a flame war here, but I see this kind of thing on this site all to often, and it's giving me shaky hands!
Srihari Y
Medical Device Design R&D Professional
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Species extinction, even mass extinction is not new. Unfortunately, we are accelerating it. However, with technology we will be able to combat ecological imbalances. This is not to say that dying polar bears should not be our priority.
Our problem is that the rate at which things become extinct is much higher than the rate at which we can understand the complexities of our ecosystems and the rate at which we can convince people on the opposite side of the political pole that it is possible and necessary to worry about and combat extinction of species.
On the other hand, the effect on human society will be a diminished environment to enjoy, the necessity to explain to our kids why we just sat and watched while the polar bears or those beautiful butterflies disappeared, and so on..in general mild to desperate unhappiness, depending on who you are and what your take on the issue is.
Good Luck!
Srihari
Eric,
Pretty bold statment here. Extinction is nothing new, it is part of the cycle, so don't chicken little the whole thing. Barring a major, major event, species will adapt or die off. However, if you are really worried about it, I would suggest pulling your money out of the 401K and party like hell.
Kevin M
Application Specialist at Wyeth
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Most of which occured at the end of the Pleistocene period, a period of global warming, I wonder who Gore blames for that.
Brian D. M
Training and Education Executive - 15 years experience
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We too as a species will one day be extinct. If not by the asteroid phenomena, then by self driven pollution of our environments driving disease to an irreversible level or worse yet, some crazy dude with a red button. Regardless of how things wind up, the millions of years earth has been here teaches us that every-"thing" will one day end. This is not a dooms-day scenario; it's modern and repeatable science.
There is inadvertently no way for us to live the way we do and believe that it's sustainable, correct or fixable post trauma. We humans love to learn by doing and unfortunately, things that are done improperly are still done at the end of the day. In the wild world of shared space amongst man and beast, humans are all powerful. This power that we possess is largely due to our highly evolved brains and most importantly, the ability to harness power. Give a dear a lesson on building a fire for winter warmth let alone electricity and a Lexus coupled with a short 3-million year evolution cycle and things could get interesting quickly.
I am neither a chemist nor biomedical scientist, but I love the Discovery channel. There seems to be some amphibian skin disorder beginning on a large scale. Nobody knows where it's from, why it's here or better yet, how to fix it. Biologists are asking the question that is 100% hushed by the media. "Could something like this happen to humans"? It's a flesh eating bacteria which slowly degrades the dermis layer until disease is imminent. They are tracking it to Global Warming, but since this is not really happening as per the share holders of energy stocks, the nonstop cycle of cause an effect continues.
I for one would vote to track upstream to the nearest coal mine, lumbering site, strip mining area or other resource take to identify the "why". This of course will never happen so long as people are made wealthy through our need and use of these energies and resources.
Giving humans a saw and saying it's OK to clear the rain forest for lumber profit is like giving a Lion a sheep herd and saying its OK to eat when hungry and NOT hungry.
What will this do for prospects? Greatly reduce them Eric. Every day, 1,500,000 acres of rain forest are lost per second. Everything indeed does have its Tipping Point. One day, we will not only understand, but will also for once, listen.
Mark W
Executive technology guidance consultant.
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I'll refrain from being so arrogant as to endorse humankind's minuscule time here in our planet's eco-system as being adequate for our species to fathom the complexities of God the creators work, much less to lend credibility to the chicken little cries that our impact is significant enough to be a major effect on a natural cycle that we don't even hope to understand.
Of the many priorities that mankind needs to be focused upon, this is not ranking at the top of my list.
Adela M
Pharmaceuticals Professional specialising in Health Economics & Outcomes Research
I can see how the above is a worry...but what worries me MORE is the phenomenon of extinction going on within humankind: the slow death of integrity, honesty, personal responsibility etc...
Steven B
● Financial Analysis & Management ● Boeing ● SunGard ● Lockheed Martin ● CIGNA ● "Mother Teresa of Network
Where are we "going" ?
Who/what to blame?
Subhas C B
Management Consultant
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We are blissfully ignorant, like the dinosaurs, of the danger or imminent extinction.
All are not spoiling the earth. Someone out there will clean this mess.
We are God's best creation, we will be saved from extinction by Him or or His authorized and accredited agents
Like most party-goers believe, lets have this last party tonight, we shall be decent beings tomorrow;
Gerald L
Gerry Lo 羅振業 Project Engineering 4300 contacts
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I think humanity's prospects are pretty much much the same as ever before; on balance, there are today more of us living longer (and arguably better) than did any of our forebears.
Opinion may be an insidious device upon which to extrapolate scientific thought, as any poll taken in the times of Copernicus, Galileo Galilei or Professor Albert Einstein is likely to have placed those individuals in the decided minority of prevailing scientific communal thought.
I am no scientist, merely a simple chemical engineer.
I observe that the vast right-wing conspiracy cunningly disguised as the Encycopedia Britannica suggests that the science of taxonomy has yet to identify the majority of species; it seems rather a bold assertion to declare a new maximum rate of decline on what appears to be somewhat a moving target in terms of total numbers.
Being a smallish mammal myself, I regret that over 66% of my large mammal cousins have reportedly died off and I sure hope it isn't catching. It seems to me that if the choice were between smilodon and me, I would be of the opinion that its longevity might come at the expense of mine.
The Serbian engineer Professor Milutin Milankovitch suggested that certain eccentricities in the earth's orbit are responsible for cycles in ice ages and their reciprocal periods of global warming.
I suppose attention could be paid to resolving those eccentricities, but this attempt to forestall the extinction of existing species might come at the expense of one of the naturalish phenomena credited with creating an environment conducive to what a lot of us consider life, if you can call this living.
I make our chances around 50-50.
